Western Credit Exposure to Russia

A recent blog-post in the Council on Foreign Relations highlighted how Western (and, in particular, European) countries are drastically reducing their credit exposure to Russia given recent Ukraine-Russia tensions (see French Banks Play Russian Roulette):

Domestic Bank Exposure to Russia

This trend in and of itself is not very surprising, nor is the speed at which domestic European banks are cutting their exposures. What is more striking to me is the size of the U.S. exposure to Russia–it’s higher than everyone else’s save for France. In addition, I was surprised that France’s exposure to Russia is so high relative to Germany and certainly relative to the UK. The CFR blog-post goes on to mention that much of France’s exposure to Russia is illiquid, putting it in a pretty sticky situation should things go further south.